6 Reasons Why Marketplace Could Loose Distribution Dominance

By Nicole Scott
3 Apr, 2011 4:00 pm

11 Comments

This has been a big week for App Store news, Amazon’s App Store has launched in game billing, try before you buy & they’ve also come out with their Cloud Player & Storage. It’s a big play for Amazon and its made us realize that Google’s MarketPlace has opened a window of opportunity for third party Android App Stores.

Over the past few months Google has been making moves that have pissed off a lot of developers and driving them into the arms of other App Stores.

1. Fragmentation
The way I see it, it all started back in Android 2.1 when Google issued major updates they have specific application for tablets meaning Marketplace can limit which applications appear in the store. So older versions of Android won’t display applications which they aren’t able to run. This was back in 2.1, since then developers have been granted access to a better NDKs so they are able to create some amazing software. However, Marketplace is not able to deliver the right software pack to the handset since the Android portfolio has grown so we’ve got v5, v6, v7 architecture to deal with. The problem is developer is not able to deliver an app that is optimized for the specific phone or tablet.

Some developers like Opera & Firefox are taking matters into their own hands. Firefox has decided that RC 4 for android will only support v7 devices with their Marketplace App. If you’re after V6 it can be downloaded from their website. Opera has also taken a similar step and made v5 only available directly from Opera.com.

*Sigh, just when we thought ‘fragmentation’ as a mobile industry buzzword had finally achieved some sort of normalcy its use.

2. Bloated Applications
If you’ve ever gotten download happy in marketplace I’m sure you’ve seen the low storage icon pop up. When I head to the application manager I’m often shocked at the size of some apps and I pretty much blame the developer for their inability to design a sleek application. It seems I’m wrong and its Marketplace that’s forcing the devs to retain unnecessary heft. Opera has actually written a blog post laying out their bloatware & optimization quandary. They offer up the below example using an ARM7 device of why their software is double the size it should be.

• ARM7 libraries uncompressed in data directory – 8.3 MB
• Compressed native libraries for ARM7 in the APK – 5 MB
• Compressed native libraries for ARM5 in the APK – 5 MB
• Other Opera components in the APK – 2.4MB

Total size 20.7MB. Of which ~10MB are never actually used. On Android 2.2 and higher it is possible to move the APK to memory card, reducing the space needed on internal memory to 8.3MB.

This seems unacceptable in my books, I’m constantly weighing the value of an app relative to its file size. If I couldn’t download the right version of Opera directly from their website not even their smooth scrolling technology would stop me from uninstalling! Sadly, not even a direct download subverts my fragmentation woes.

3. Inability to Send Updates
Now that you’ve clued in that you could save yourself 10MB of space and downloaded Opera directly from the developer you’re faced with a new challenge. The developer is only allowed to send updates to the official version in the store. They aren’t allowed to update versions of their software that came from anywhere else.
According to Philip Gronvold PM at Opera, “It turns into a difficult environment for software developers to deliver different software packages. It is the definition of the fragmentation issues that have been at risk in the Android ecosystem.” It became clear that Opera’s choice was to deliver an optimized experience on only 25% of devices or deliver a product that was 30% slower but is optimized for 90% of devices. He emphasized that since delivering a bad internet experience on certain devices wasn’t an option, the less evil was a large file which is even larger at install…

Opera is not the only company to speak out against these clearly present issues. GameLoft has taken created their own store to get around Marketplace fragmentation. Gameloft has optimized their games for specific GPUs as well as optimizing open GL drivers in the phone. The inability to deliver the appropriate software pack to the handset forced this game developer straight into Amazon’s arms. It seems that companies who value user experience are opting for third party Android App Stores or direct downloads.

4. Piracy
Application developers have been calling on Google to improve their regulation on Marketplace as pirated games are appearing in the store. When the app owner contacts Google to report the offense Google often takes several days to respond and there do not appear to be any repercussions for the offending account!

5. MarketPlace isn’t available in China
Third Party App Stores are rising to fill this void, China is a huge market and though distribution networks are being forged it is coming at a cost. Trojans and Malware are reportedly turning up out of these Chinese Android App Stores. Additionally, most handsets in China are low spec’ed so they are on the older arm instruction sets and will not have releases for newer phones.

6. Is Android Really Open?
We all love the idea that Google is Open Source, but are they acting open? Bloomberg has just reported that Google is actively working to gain control and final say over customizations. The supposed Red Hat wearing company is demanding content partnerships and OS tweaks be approved by Any Rubin before development can occur. If you don’t want to play by those rules, well, then Google will with hold Honeycomb source code and you’ll no longer be competitive! As Nokia’s Stephen Elop puts it: “The premise of a true open software platform may be where Android started, but it’s not where Android is going.”

The interesting thing about every point mentioned above (apart from 5 & 6) is that Google could turn around and essentially fix the Marketplace issues in a single update. So the question really becomes how long will Amazon have to gain serious traction before developers have warm fuzzy feeling for Android again. The longer they wait, they longer Amazon & other 3rd party App Stores have to burrow their way into a permanent place in the Android App distribution model.

There is no telling when Marketplace will get an update, but if we look at Google’s history, usually it’s updated along with the OS. Ice cream isn’t meant to be rearing its head until late Q4 or most likely early 2012. Nine months is enough time to get pregnant and have a baby. I’ll forgo the obvious pun and point out that Amazon has a trusted name and a customer experience focused distribution network.